A review of cavity heat transfer under separated/reattached flow conditions

Abstract

The flow dynamics inside cavities associated with turbulent incoming flow and oscillations of the cavity shear layer is an important field of study that has attracted many researchers aiming to understand the complex flow features using both numerical and experimental techniques. Such a flow exists in many industries, such as in the automobile industry for flows over the sunroof of vehicles, and in the energy industry such as in finned heat-exchangers, combustion chambers, and turbines that utilizes wind energy harvesting in buildings. Most of those studies focused on the aero-acoustic mechanism and its control. Despite its wide industrial applications, heat transfer in cavity with oscillating shear layer remains less studied in the literature. The present paper presents a literature review of various studies that focuses on the heat transfer mechanism in those cavity configurations and how it is affected by the flow parameters.

Keywords

• Cavity flow
• Heat transfer
• Turbulence
• Unsteadiness